On the grounds of common sense it's a bit daft but as they can't get to the pirates directly they're lashing out at anyone they can get their money grubbing hands on. They get the search engine to do their job for them too. One hell of a business model. Lawyers must be laughing all the way to the bank.

Seems to me that a chinese group complaining about piracy is a bit silly, since according to the IFPI china has an 85% piracy rate

http://www.ifpi.com/content/section_news/20050623.html

/rant

...if you are unsuccessful in your attempts to get the pirates, then hit the innocent bystanders with a shotgun blast of law suits. "Collateral damage" and "friendly fire or blue-on-blue" are not restricted to the American military efforts !!

And they wonder why people are not more friendly and/or helpful towards them !! If they stop behaving like Nazi thugs, maybe people might be more forthcoming in their efforts to help fight against piracy.

I love reading the free books/chapters published by Baen Books. Then I go out and buy the books/whole series (paper version). I don't go round pirating e-books !! If I think my friends would like certain books, I will also buy copies for them to read !! Authors have to eat too !!

This is the equivalent of Indie music published on the net, bypassing the Almighty Music Industry.

/endrant

Well, perhaps they should still get protection for being a search engine. But, I looked at Baidu once or twice -- they had (just looked -- make that "have") a separate media search function that is UNCANNY about returning almost entirely commercial results. Put in "car", and rather than having some usual mix of videos of people showing off their cars, car races, etc. with some music videos and TV shows mixed in, it's like over 90% music videos and shows with a few misc items thrown in.

That said, is that enough to be illegal? Who knows, laws in China are different than Britain's or US's.

This is where everyone here has got it wrong. Baidu is in all probability involved in hosting the music files too, and that is why it is being accused of "engaging in piracy". In order to maintain the guise of a search engine, it has also seeded the "3rd party sites" with music files so that it can ingeniously "search" and deliver the required music files for download while seemingly keeping their hands clean. But credit to them that they have also managed to tap into all of this support from the commenters here, who have been fooled into thinking that Baidu is clean.